Combat may boost blood pressure: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Combat exposure ups the likelihood that a military service member will develop high blood pressure, or "hypertension," new research out in the journal Hypertension indicates.

While soldiers who had been deployed to war zones but hadn't seen combat were actually at somewhat lower risk of developing high blood pressure, those who had been exposed to combat many times were at greater risk, Dr. Nisara S. Granado of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego and colleagues found.

They looked at 36,061 active-duty and Reserve/National Guard service members participating in the Millenium Cohort Study, a sampling of 2.2 million men and women serving in the military as of 2000. The participants in the current study completed a baseline questionnaire in 2000-2003 and a follow-up in 2004-2006.

Among the 8,829 who had been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations, 4,385 had not seen combat, 586 had been exposed to combat once, and 3,858 had been in combat several times.

During follow-up, which averaged about three years, nearly 7 percent of the study participants reported being newly diagnosed with high blood pressure.

The men and women who hadn't seen combat were 27 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure than those who hadn't been deployed.

However, those who had been exposed to combat multiple times were 33 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure than their colleagues who had no combat exposures.

Personally witnessing or being exposed to war-related deaths was particularly hard on blood pressure. For a single exposure, the risk of developing high blood pressure was 50 percent higher; for multiple exposures, it was 43 percent higher.

Combat exposure seems to be a "unique risk factor" for developing high blood pressure, the researchers conclude.